


Run for Your Life! (or don't, up to you)

by somewhereelse



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Olicity Hiatus Fic-A-Thon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereelse/pseuds/somewhereelse
Summary: Season 2.5 AU or alternate Season 3, Episode 1. Felicity decides to run a (half-)marathon. Oliver decides to ask her on a date. Neither of these things go quite as planned.





	Run for Your Life! (or don't, up to you)

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days I’m going to post a fic without correcting any of Google’s weird autocorrect and suggestions from using the swipe keyboard. Or I could stop writing on my tablet.
> 
> Olicity Hiatus Fic-A-Thon Week 14: Ask. (Day late, dollar short. Story of my life.)

**_Where are you?_ **

Oliver frowns down at his phone. Still no response. He sent the message over ten minutes ago, when he first crossed the finish line, and nothing.

Beside him, Thea mutters a concerned, “Where is she?” as they pick through the crowd trying to find the information tent.

Thea greeted him just past the finish line, Diggle, very pregnant Lyla, and a reluctantly awake this early Roy, too. She ran up to hug him but stopped short after seeing how sweaty he was. Then he crushed her against his chest anyway.

He expected a tired Felicity to be with the group, since she ran the half in contrast to his full, but no. They very deliberately arrived an hour after the start, in plenty of time to watch everyone but the fastest runners finish the half marathon, and no Felicity. Thea hadn’t been able to find her bib number on the online tracking site, but sometimes those were unreliable. So they waited for him to finish, figuring that if Felicity wandered off to a coffee shop or somewhere, she would be back in time for that.

Watching as Lyla approaches an event worker, Oliver frowns at his phone again. Felicity is nothing if not an enthusiastic texter. Once, she even lectured Thea about playing games and waiting to respond to Roy’s early texts. If she’s anywhere near her phone, she would have responded by now. Maybe she’s injured? Sitting in a medic tent or an ambulance and unable to answer?

His grip on his phone tightens as he imagines the worst, and Thea places a comforting hand on his arm. “Hey, calm down there, sparky. I’m sure she’s fine. Just... looked over somehow.”

Lyla comes back without any news, which is when Dig’s phone beeps. After digging it out of his back pocket, he announced with a confused tone, “It’s Felicity. At home. Didn’t run. Please don’t come over.”

“Oliver, _no_.”

He doesn’t know where Roy found the balls to speak to him like that but he takes a menacing step towards the shorter man.

“Hey, Roy’s right.” Lyla stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “She’s probably just embarrassed about not running or something and needs time. Let’s go get you some lunch first, Oliver.”

The rest of the group eagerly—too eagerly—agrees and pulls him in the direction of their favorite downtown restaurant a few blocks over. He drags his feet even more when he remembers that Felicity made the reservation, saying she needs something to look forward to after 13.1 miles of pain. 

That’s when he got the idea.

Oliver has been sitting on asking her out for months now. He knows Felicity isn’t going to make a move, not after he equivocated on Lian Yu about that confession that had gone so right yet _not_. But over time, his rusty game has gotten even rustier, and he hadn’t been able to figure out the right approach. So he asked her to help him with learning the ropes at QC and preparing for the board meeting, hoping that an opening would appear with the more time they spent together.

Then, one day early in the summer, Felicity marched into the foundry, declaring that she had signed up for the Starling City Downtown Marathon, well the half, and one of them was running with her because there was no other possible way she would keep up with training if no one made her. Diggle was immediately out, stating that a man of his size didn’t do sustained cardio without asking for joint damage. Roy declined, too, not having the time to train with his increased duties at Verdant—and not wanting to aggravate his old injury from getting shot in the leg. 

And Oliver?

Well, he’s a sucker for those blue eyes and any opportunity to spend more time with Felicity Smoak.

So they added morning runs to their afternoon CEO lessons and nighttime Arrow’ing, and all he’s done since is fall even more in love with Felicity. Not just the insanely smart part of her that he’s long been aware of, but also the crabby, grouchy, hates mornings but really hates exercise in the mornings part of her. He knows she suspects _something_ is up—that his feelings have changed or that he’d been lying on Lian Yu—because a man doesn’t attach himself to a woman’s side like that without ulterior motives. But still they’re stuck in a rut. Because she’s still sure unsure that he feels anything for her beyond friendship, and he’s still tongue-tied about the one thing that consumes nearly all his thoughts.

The week before the race, John mentioned that Lyla wanted to come cheer them on. She had suggested going out to celebrate after the marathon, and Felicity excitedly agreed, claiming she could use food to look forward to after that nightmare. And that’s how he got the idea.

If Felicity wanted something to look forward to after her half, well, then, he’s going to ask her out.

Of course, it’s not really something _she_ could look forward to, what with it being a surprise and all. But it was something for _him_ to look forward to. It’s the reason he was extra encouraging and motivating even as Felicity started voicing more and more concerns that she wouldn’t finish.

Oliver needed her to finish because he needed her to be excited about her accomplishment and riding that runner’s high she finally realized was a real thing. Then she wouldn’t question why he took an entire summer to work up the nerve to ask her out, or why he had been so shifty on Lian Yu. She would just _agree_. 

So she can’t be _at home_. That’s not at all how today’s supposed to go.

 

* * *

 

Several hours later, after he’s finally shaken off the well-meaning group who were obviously just stalling to keep him from doing the exact thing he’s doing right now and gotten his legs back under him, Oliver stands on Felicity’s porch, holding a carton of mint chip ice cream that is slowly but surely melting in his hand. Dusk is settling in, and her lights are on so he knows she’s home. He’s just not sure why he’s hesitating.

His phone beeps, and he juggles the ice cream for a moment before he manages to maneuver it out of his pocket.

_ Please go home _

Well, there’s always the part where he’s completely unwanted in Felicity’s home for the first time in actual months. Hell, he’s shown up for a five am run and gotten a warmer welcome before. Minus the coffee mug she tried and failed to lob at his head that one time.

**_I just want to see that you’re okay_ **

It’s not his most eloquent or charming but it _is_ honest. No matter how much the others tried to distract him, he hadn’t been able to focus on anything other than his missing Girl Wednesday. So they had a weird start to the morning on their way to the race. No reason for her to ditch the one event she’d spent months preparing for. Given literal blood, sweat, and tears for.

_ I don’t need your pity. Please go home _

That raises his eyebrows. Since when is Felicity concerned about him pitying her? He was briefly acquainted with that annoying feeling—when he first returned from the island and people felt sorry for him until he re-adopted his playboy cover and they were quickly fed up with him again—but he’s never applied that to Felicity before. Not even when Sara came back from the dead, and she showed signs of being insecure. That was about her place on the team and having something to contribute, not about being a charity case.

 ** _I’m worried. We all were._** Maybe mentioning everyone else will remind her that it’s not just him on the other side of this literal and figurative door.  ** _Will you at least open the door and say it to my face?_**

The door cracks open a bare inch, and he hears a muffled, “Go home,” before she tries to shut it again.

Too late.

Firmly but carefully, he forces the door open wider until Felicity gives up all at once and he stumbles forward without her resistance.

“I should have known that was a trick,” she grumbles, crossing her arms. 

Ignoring her for the moment, he wanders into her kitchen to put the ice cream in the freezer. There’s an empty wine bottle on top of the recycling that wasn’t there this morning and another next to an empty but wine-stained glass on the kitchen counter. He casts a concerned glance over his shoulder, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“I’m not drunk _now_. That was from hours ago. I just don’t want to see or talk to you. Is that so hard to believe?”

It’s his turn to cross his arms defensively. “We’ve spent nearly eighteen hours a day together every day the entire summer, so yes? Why didn’t you run?” He follows her into the living room, sidestepping the knickknacks she launches in his direction.

“Oliver. I’m literally throwing things at you. Take the hint and leave.”

“You don’t mean it,” he scoffs dismissively, and she gives him a hard look. “Okay, I realize that sounds bad. But you don’t. Answer the question. Why didn’t you run?”

Collapsing onto her couch, Felicity hugs a throw pillow to herself. “I didn’t feel like failing at something else today.”

He’s gobsmacked by her answer because it doesn’t make any  _sense_. Even when he doesn’t necessarily understand Felicity, he at least knows the vague direction of what she’s talking about. But _what_? “What do you mean fail? You would have finished just fine. And what else did you fail at today? I left you at the start line at like 6:45.”

“It’s stupid,” she mumbles into the pillow’s fringe.

Without waiting for an invitation, Oliver drops onto the couch next to her. He rubs wearily at his tired eyes. “You’re many things, Felicity. Stupid is not an adjective that ever comes to mind.”

She scoffs, reaches out to push his shoulder then stops herself before making contact. “I planned on doing something before the race. As we were training, it kind of became the entire point. Like I could psych myself up for it like building my running endurance. Doing this  _thing_ and running were inextricable in my mind.”

“And then race day came, and you still hadn’t done your thing,” Oliver fills in, suddenly more understanding of why she just disappeared this morning. “What happened with your thing?”

“I was all set to do it.” He remembers how excited she was this morning, eager even, running in place and talking a mile a minute. Felicity often joked that she wished her feet moved as fast as her mouth did. “Then I just... got a reality check, I guess. Realized it was a terrible idea.”

“Between me leaving you at your start line and ten minutes later when the starter pistol went off, you realized this thing you planned on doing for months was a terrible idea?” he questions incredulously. Because that isn’t _right_. Felicity might not be a meticulous planner—she’s more reactionary like him—but her long-term schemes don’t just fall apart.

As expected, she blushes a little, hiding behind the pillow a little more. “Around then.”

So before. 

 

* * *

 

They were unexpectedly pulled over on their way to the race. The flashing lights in his rearview mirror were a surprise, and Oliver grumbled about only being five miles over the speed limit before grudgingly pulling over. If this took too long, they were going to miss the start time. 

Who was even patrolling at six am?

Detective, soon-to-be-Captain, Lance, that’s who.

They both recognized the familiar silhouette approaching the car. Felicity asked what he’d done this time to piss off Lance, and he just glared in response, rolling his window down. “Can I help you, Detective? Felicity and I are running the marathon this morning. Need to get to the start line.”

“Morning, Miss Smoak,” Lance greeted formally with a teasing grin. “Oliver, mind getting out of the car?”

Rolling his eyes, he didn’t bother repeating their urgency and followed the detective back to his car. Lance kept the conversation short, never explaining why he couldn’t have just called, and once Oliver agreed to Lance’s request, he hurried back to his car. Hopefully, parking wasn’t a nightmare, and they’d make it with time to spare. 

He must have been too preoccupied with the logistics to notice anything wrong with Felicity. In retrospect, she was quiet after Lance’s stop in contrast to the idle conversation they had before. When he left her at the starting line, she half-heatedly returned his good luck before pushing him towards the group running the full marathon. He’d chalked the uncharacteristic behavior up to her nerves then been preoccupied himself, wondering if he should have asked her out at the starting line, given her a kiss for good luck. 

No, he had a plan, a solid plan, and it was going to work. He just had to run 26.2 miles first.

 

* * *

 

Except it didn’t work. And now he’s sitting on Felicity’s couch, trying to figure out how the hell his solid plan got so derailed.

“Felicity,” she turns away, refusing to meet his eyes, “What happened this morning?”

“I had a plan, okay?” she bursts out. The pillow is tossed aside, and she’s up on her feet pacing before he even realizes it. “It was a good plan, too. Movie-worthy really. And it wasn’t even _that_ contrived. I thought of it last month, and it just seemed like perfect timing, kismet, or something. I didn’t start this whole marathon business intending to do it. I mean I wasn’t gunning for you or anything. I would have been perfectly happy training with Dig or Roy, but neither of them wanted to do it. So it was me and you. _Again_. Because we didn’t already spend all our time together what with business-school-for-dummies and playing cops and robbers.”

Oliver stands up to insert himself in her path. She’s so focused on her rant that she literally runs into him, bouncing back a step before he steadies her. “Felicity, I want to understand why you’re upset but I am _so_ lost right now.”

For whatever reason, that makes her mouth snap shut. Hard. He winces at the sound of her teeth clacking together.

“ _You_ ,” for good measure, she thumps her balled up fists on his chest and ignores his comment about how he barely felt that, “You are _so_ frustrating. Am I the only one who’s lived through the ridiculousness of this past summer? I know I’m not. Roy wouldn’t keep making kissy faces at me, if I were.”

“Roy’s making _kissy_  faces at you,” Oliver repeats incredulously. His mentee’s going to have a very uncomfortable training session tomorrow.

“Yes! Because he’s annoyed, and his oh-so-mature solution is to annoy me right back. Dig thinks he’s being more evolved than that, but his reaction is just as annoying. I swear, one more week and I am going to shave off that judgmental eyebrow in his sleep.”

Diggle sporting a singular eyebrow because of the wrath of Felicity is an amusing mental image but, “If you’re wondering, I’m still lost.”

The anger or annoyance or irritation or _whatever_ bleeds out of her. Felicity collapses back onto the couch, the pillow finding its way back into her arms. “I thought we were building something this summer.”

Oliver nods in agreement. Because they have been. Their partnership is stronger than ever, and the team has benefited from it. Dig keeps them in line like he always has, and Roy—kissy faces excepted—has slotted in where they didn’t even realize a gap existed.

Things are good right now.

So good that he’s trying to do what he once deemed impossible. Take a chance on his personal life. Be the Arrow and Oliver Queen.

If only Felicity would cooperate and get on the same page. Hell, he’d settle for the same chapter.

“Okay, so we’re both in agreement there. What I wanted to do this morning—I mean, the natural culmination of two people spending just about every waking minute together—eventually, you would think that—”

“Felicity, I can’t take the suspense anymore.”

She glares at him, and he takes the warning to heart, quieting with an apologetic look. “You left the window down, and I overheard what Lance asked you because, hey, not much traffic at six am on a Saturday it turns out. I get that your primary focus now is going to be Laurel. Lance has a valid point. When he calls off the task force, she might see that as implicit acceptance of her getting involved, _more_ involved, with the Arrow. You, that is. And you were so... _sweet_  when you agreed to help steer her away from you, even though she’s got carte blanche in the Arrow cave now. Then you were obviously preoccupied with that the rest of the drive. Even when we got to the marathon. I can’t—maybe I would have finished the half if I ran, but _that_? It’s not a race I could ever win. Not with all that history.”

Oliver waits a full thirty seconds to make sure she’s actually done speaking. He might know where she’s going with this, but they couldn’t possibly have had the same idea. “What exactly are you saying?”

“I was going to ask you on a date at the starting line,” she sighs in a quiet rush. “If you said yes, maybe we’d kiss for luck.” Her tone is wistful and dreamy then she shakes her head violently. “It was dumb. Total movie contrivance. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that. Obviously, I reconsidered.”

It’s a long pause before he responds because he needs time to process that. From the look on her face, he doesn’t have much. _Felicity_  was all set to ask him out because she’s apparently as fed up with their situation as he is. Somehow, a three minute conversation with the good detective convinced her that Laurel would once again overrule everything else in his orbit. Whatever he says next has to convince her that’s not true. 

“Well, I haven’t.”

“You haven’t what?”

“Reconsidered.” Wary but curious, she barely turns his way to raise an eyebrow at him. “Ask me what I was going to do after the marathon.”

“Go to lunch?” He scoffs lightly and tilts his head at her. “Disneyworld? I hear that’s the thing to do after displays of athletic prowess.”

“Felicity. Ask. Me.”

They sit in a silent battle of wills before she clicks her tongue and heaves a sigh. “Oliver, what were you going to do after the marathon?”

“Felicity, will you go to dinner with me? Dinner-like-a-date dinner. Not help-me-understand-pro-formas dinner.”

It’s probably bad etiquette, but he can’t help grinning at her shell-shocked expression. Is it really that surprising if she was planning on doing the same thing? She shakes her head again, softer and slower this time. “I don’t understand.”

“If you said yes, maybe we’d have a victory kiss. I know. Total movie contrivance,” he reciprocates her words from earlier, but she just blinks.

“You’re serious? You were going to ask me out?”

“Yeah. The conversation with Lance didn’t—You were being quiet, and I didn’t want to disturb you. That’s all.” She’s still confused, still fiddling with the pillow’s fringe. “Felicity,” her head snaps up to meet his eyes like she’d forgotten he was there, “Are you going to answer the question?”

“What?”

“I didn’t reconsider asking. Will you go out with me?”

“Yes!” With a sheepish smile, she settles after the exclamation. This time, the corner of the pillow hides her bright smile. “Yes, I’d love to.”

They’ve known each for years, been building up to this for nearly just as long. They’ve just confessed this mutual desire to each other. Admittedly, there are others, but they can start simple. She can’t think he’s too forward just for stealing a kiss before their to-be-determined date so he tugs the pillow out of her grip, leaning down to her as she tilts her head up.

Oliver’s a hairsbreadth away when Felicity smirks, pulls back a millimeter.

“Hey buddy. You got to ask first.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't run. Running is for people who can't multitask. (She whines pettily while struggling to chew gum and walk at the same time.)


End file.
